Ban on new petrol and diesel cars in UK could be in place by 2032

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In ten years time we'll all be driving awesome EVs and wondering why the Hell we ever though petrol cars were a good idea.

When EVs are the same price as petrol cars, can do a full charge in a minute or two, and have a 500+ mile range, then I will happily switch. Until that point, I'll stick with petrol.

Does your current car have a range of 500 miles on a tank? And can you drive 500 miles without a break?

This is nothing to do with the pros and cons of electric cars per se, but on a "French Holiday Road Trip", the Good Lady and I can easily drive 500 miles on a single tank of fuel with breaks no longer than a quick pit stop and driver change.

I'm planning on an electric car for the next family runaround though.

Interesting. All the cars I’ve had have had a 300 to 350 mile range on a full tank. Mind if I ask what yours is?

Xsara Picasso 2.0hdi (diesel) easily does over 500 miles to a full tank and that's driving "out in the sticks" so to speak -- no motorways here.
Mind you my better half's Peugeot 207 cc petrol only does 300 + miles on a full tank when she is driving but I can squeeze an extra 75 miles + out when I drive it !

No replies here from people who tow caravans , horse boxes, boat etc -- doesn't anyone have a tow bar fitted to their present vehicles?

Charge where you park. Or better, where you drive to, work, supermarket etc.

i do not think you have really thought this through. so supermarkets will have to have loads of these charging stations and who do you think is going to pay for them? the same with work, that is if the person can park at work, who is going to pay for all these charging stations?
We have a few in the car parks around here and the council now saying that people that uses them can have 30 minutes free parking, why the hell should they have any free parking and free energy? The council complains they have no money and that they need to charge for parking to make up the shortfall including street parking in town and now they are giving away electric and parking. then you have someone in a EV BMW write a letter to our local paper saying that one of them was not working so he could not get his free electric, if he can afford a BMW, he can afford to charge his car at home.

How can people charge where they park at home if no driveway, I know they are saying about charging ports on lampposts, , most of the lamposts i have seen is located away from, the kerb, so cables will be dragging across the pavement.

just being a realist, maybe people on here should think things through first.

Whats not real life about the health and environmental impacts of car fumes. Whats not real life about the refinement and distribution of fuel being a dirty and inefficent process. Whats not real life about oil being a finite resource. Whats not real life about EV's actually being better for a huge % of car workloads and the vast majority of trips are well within the range of an EV.

If there was no asbestos ban, it would still be in use. Personally, i found the innovation and potential of EV's facinating and this ban ensures that investment in solutions to all percieved problems will be there.

Yet people still fly, time after time after time, including the people that complains about us damaging the environment,, I bet one flight will cause more pollution than someone using their car for a month. electric aircraft is not going to be with us anytime soon.

I am not against EV, as i have said before, but I look on the real life side and the problems that are there. We would have EV many years ago if the oil companies did not go against it it was them that stopped the development. if I could drive and I had the money to buy a EV, I would , but then I have a driveway and I doubt I would take it into town that often. I agree about the environmental impacts of the internal combustion engine, but EV is not off the hook either, look at the way lithium is mined and what happens to the batteries after their life have ended? As I have said I have a electric bike,, the battery for that will cost £400 when they are past their life, how much will it be for a EV?

There are a limited number of lamp posts, they'd have to introduce charging bays that can only be used for charging a vehicle.

Living in a controlled parking zone, it would mean crossing into the next zone to find a parking space next to a lamppost.

Also...is it a good idea to have cables left laying across the pavement and wouldn't it become a prank to unplug the cables...even nick them to sell on eBay?

Well there's already a certain community whose rich heritage involves enjoy stealing cabling whenever possible to sell on for scrap metal. So I guess it will be boom time for them (and their untaxed, uninsured vehicles)

Top Gear reviewed a new electric Porsche....they said it could be charged quickly because it accepts a high voltage (400v ?). They also said the battery was heavy...would it be possible to have a replaceable battery?

I have a battery powered lawn mower but one battery charge doesn't complete the lawn so I have a second battery which I swap over when the first one runs out.

Or....have a main battery and a smaller reserve battery which can be easily swopped to complete a journey?

Ok, after this I’m done with the stupid but let me answer with a question - how many of those flats have petrol pumps outside them?

You said you are done with the stupid, but really you should look at what you posted, because that is stupid. you go to a petrol station, it takes a few minutes to fill your car up, it take a longer to charge a car.
for crying out loud.

so supermarkets will have to have loads of these charging stations and who do you think is going to pay for them?

1) this is already happening
2) the people who use them pay for them. They are owned and run by private companies (look up ‘electric highway’ or ‘infravolt’) who charge for the electricity they provide to people. That fee covers the cost of the actual electricity, plus a bit to pay off the cost of installing the charge points over time, plus a bit more as profit. Imagine! The standard model of commercial activity we’ve used ever since we invented money also working with car charging!

the same with work, that is if the person can park at work, who is going to pay for all these charging stations?

See above. There are also firms who will happily install charging points in office car parks or multistories for you, on condition they can charge for their use and make a profit. Imagine that also, people will do stuff that makes them money, I know, staggering.

We have a few in the car parks around here and the council now saying that people that uses them can have 30 minutes free parking, why the hell should they have any free parking and free energy?

I’m sorry, I’m out. You’ve patently spent no time at all finding out whether what you think is actually true or not. Life is, as they say, too short.

We have a single drive and there are 3 of us with a car each so it's first come first served so in theory one of us could charge every 3 days. But there's a lot of flats around here and parking ids a free for all and certainly no where to charge up overnight.... Though I suppose if you daisy-chained up dozens of extension leads. with many hanging out of the window people could charge over night.

As i said no thought have been done, oh lets ban petrol cars and get everyone to use electric, sounds great, but problems have not been thought over. so called experts are government puppets, they are there to get people to change, makes me wonder if they are really experts to be honest.

No replies here from people who tow caravans , horse boxes, boat etc -- doesn't anyone have a tow bar fitted to their present vehicles?

That’s, definitely a blind spot for EVs. Technically speaking EVs should be really good tow cars, instantly available torque etc. Yet as far as I know very few of them are equipped for or are recommended as tow cars. You’d think a Kona electric or an I-pace would be a great tower, but they just don’t seem to be sold as.

Top Gear reviewed a new electric Porsche....they said it could be charged quickly because it accepts a high voltage (400v ?). They also said the battery was heavy...would it be possible to have a replaceable battery?

I have a battery powered lawn mower but one battery charge doesn't complete the lawn so I have a second battery which I swap over when the first one runs out.

Or....have a main battery and a smaller reserve battery which can be easily swopped to complete a journey?

There would be service stations with charged batteries ready to go?

You really would need interchangeability of batteries between different makes of cars - think Betamax v VHS video.
Even then, these things are heavy and would require specialist lifting gear., so probably not just a couple of minutes changeover time.

Charge where you park. Or better, where you drive to, work, supermarket etc.

We have a few in the car parks around here and the council now saying that people that uses them can have 30 minutes free parking, why the hell should they have any free parking and free energy? The council complains they have no money and that they need to charge for parking to make up the shortfall including street parking in town and now they are giving away electric and parking. then you have someone in a EV BMW write a letter to our local paper saying that one of them was not working so he could not get his free electric, if he can afford a BMW, he can afford to charge his car at home.

How can people charge where they park at home if no driveway, I know they are saying about charging ports on lampposts, , most of the lamposts i have seen is located away from, the kerb, so cables will be dragging across the pavement.

just being a realist, maybe people on here should think things through first.

Charging will be the major obsticle that needs overcoming. How big will a motorway service station have to be to accommodate X amount of cars while they sit there charging? At home I'd have no issues as we are detached and rural so could charge a dozen cars on our front paddock but what about people like my daughter who has off road parking for one car but needs two vehicles plus the rest of the street where most homes now use/need two vehicles.

Going all electric will come, it has to but personally I'd have preferred the switch to be a more organic move, less rushed and not the result of an ill thought out knee jerk declaration by the blonde paunchy idiot we now have as PM. Won't have a great impact on me, won't be driving much when I'm 80 but there are some big problems ahead.

As an after thought perhaps home charging points can be fitted the same time as every home in the UK has super fast fibre broadband fitted?.....no hang on, we'll never go all EV waiting for that to happen.

I'm by no means agains EVs and will buy one myself in the next year or two for use as our shopping car but I can't see how a blanket adoption of these vehicles can happen in the given time line, its going to take a lot longer IMHO.

Charge where you park. Or better, where you drive to, work, supermarket etc.

i do not think you have really thought this through. so supermarkets will have to have loads of these charging stations and who do you think is going to pay for them? the same with work, that is if the person can park at work, who is going to pay for all these charging stations?
We have a few in the car parks around here and the council now saying that people that uses them can have 30 minutes free parking, why the hell should they have any free parking and free energy? The council complains they have no money and that they need to charge for parking to make up the shortfall including street parking in town and now they are giving away electric and parking. then you have someone in a EV BMW write a letter to our local paper saying that one of them was not working so he could not get his free electric, if he can afford a BMW, he can afford to charge his car at home.

How can people charge where they park at home if no driveway, I know they are saying about charging ports on lampposts, , most of the lamposts i have seen is located away from, the kerb, so cables will be dragging across the pavement.

just being a realist, maybe people on here should think things through first.

You are looking at a scheme that currently offers incentives to people to change to electric cars and applying it to a future, rather than than how it will probably look when it could cost £80.00 in today's money to charge up a car in a car park and there being no alternative to that than £5.00 per litre fossil fuels

Top Gear reviewed a new electric Porsche....they said it could be charged quickly because it accepts a high voltage (400v ?). They also said the battery was heavy...would it be possible to have a replaceable battery?

I have a battery powered lawn mower but one battery charge doesn't complete the lawn so I have a second battery which I swap over when the first one runs out.

Or....have a main battery and a smaller reserve battery which can be easily swopped to complete a journey?

There would be service stations with charged batteries ready to go?

You really would need interchangeability of batteries between different makes of cars - think Betamax v VHS video.
Even then, these things are heavy and would require specialist lifting gear., so probably not just a couple of minutes changeover time.

On the radio a listener was complaining about there not being a uniform battery.

With the advances in technology & software....it may become like the computer industry where a vehicle could quickly become obsolete, no longer supported by a manufacturer plus the charging system is not compatible..

Top Gear reviewed a new electric Porsche....they said it could be charged quickly because it accepts a high voltage (400v ?). They also said the battery was heavy...would it be possible to have a replaceable battery?

I have a battery powered lawn mower but one battery charge doesn't complete the lawn so I have a second battery which I swap over when the first one runs out.

Or....have a main battery and a smaller reserve battery which can be easily swopped to complete a journey?

There would be service stations with charged batteries ready to go?

You really would need interchangeability of batteries between different makes of cars - think Betamax v VHS video.
Even then, these things are heavy and would require specialist lifting gear., so probably not just a couple of minutes changeover time.

On the radio a listener was complaining about there not being a uniform battery.

With the advances in technology & software....it may become like the computer industry where a vehicle could quickly become obsolete, no longer supported by a manufacturer plus the charging system is not compatible..

IIRC this was in some of the original plans and I think there is an EV motorcycle where the battery is like,a,briefcase you can take out and swap. However it’s never really got past design in cars because removable batteries have lots of problems. They’re hard to weatherproof , they add weight and complexity and, especially with the kind of power levels EVs use, there are genuine safety fears - mechanics and fire officers have to do extra training to be aware of and safely work with the batteries in EVs, so letting any old member of the public deal with them *shudder*. This is assuming the batteries were light enough for one person to easily move about. Currently, in pretty much all EVs, they aren’t.

Basically, EVs don’t have easily removable batteries for the same reasons smartphones have generally stopped having removable batteries - it adds cost, complexity and creates problems for a marginal gain. Yes, you would get back the 20 minutes or whatever once a week you’d spend charging a car in the way we currently do it, but it would make the car worse for all the rest of the time you’re driving it. People just don’t see that as a positive compromise to make.

The most annoying thing about cars compared with something like smoking Is drivers can close their windows and be protected from the fumes they're creating. Where as I have to breathe all their crap in. Atleast with something like smoking you can stand away from everyone so it's only really affecting the individual.

In ten years time we'll all be driving awesome EVs and wondering why the Hell we ever though petrol cars were a good idea.

When EVs are the same price as petrol cars, can do a full charge in a minute or two, and have a 500+ mile range, then I will happily switch. Until that point, I'll stick with petrol.

Does your current car have a range of 500 miles on a tank? And can you drive 500 miles without a break?

This is nothing to do with the pros and cons of electric cars per se, but on a "French Holiday Road Trip", the Good Lady and I can easily drive 500 miles on a single tank of fuel with breaks no longer than a quick pit stop and driver change.

I'm planning on an electric car for the next family runaround though.

Interesting. All the cars I’ve had have had a 300 to 350 mile range on a full tank. Mind if I ask what yours is?

Volvo XC60 D4 AWD.

Ta, will look into it.

On hols two summers ago, we went with some friends who had a Mitsubishi PHEV, which is a hybrid battery and petrol device. By my assessment, it was the very worst of all worlds: It did just 250-300 miles on the fuel tank and around 40 on the battery. And whilst it was the size of a tank the battery took up so much space that there was very little space for luggage in the boot. Even to get the 40 mile battery range, it was necessary to have it plugged in overnight.

Maybe the PHEV is a bad example of the technology, but it was a relatively new car and so presumably relatively new technology. I think there is a long way to go before any car based round a battery is going to be a practical alternative to a traditional family car. The "city car" is an entirely different concept, where a range of 40 miles requiring an overnight charge should be logistically viable, assuming the charging points exist. We'd be OK with our house (easy access to power on the drive) but how this would work with houses with limited parking or even no guaranteed allocated parking is not so obvious.

Yes, tough luck if you have to rely on street charging and all the places next to chargers are occupied by non-EV cars.

This will be driven more by the manufacturers I reckon who are already gearing up to push EVs over IC engined cars.

So the focus should not be on roadside ‘filling stations’ - it should be on the ability for people to charge their cars outside their homes and at final destinations. The vast majority of car usage will be accounted for by an overnight charge (people just need to get used to plugging in).

Roadside filling stations will, within a few years, only need to cater for very long journeys, where people need to plan to take a break anyway.

And for people living in flats? Where will they charge overnight?

We have a single drive and there are 3 of us with a car each so it's first come first served so in theory one of us could charge every 3 days. But there's a lot of flats around here and parking ids a free for all and certainly no where to charge up overnight.... Though I suppose if you daisy-chained up dozens of extension leads. with many hanging out of the window people could charge over night.

First I'd ask do you fill up more than every 3 days now?

But as electric cars proliferate so will on street charging points. There's already lots in London.